Meat injection machines (i.e., meat, poultry and fish products) have been in existence for many years. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,744, for example. Brine is typically injected from a battery of needles into a meat product moving to an injection station on a movable horizontal conveyor.
It is common for pockets of fluid to accumulate within a meat product in the injection process rather than to be uniformly distributed throughout the product, and this results in an unsatisfactory final product.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus for evacuating pockets of injected fluid in meat products.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for evacuating pockets of injected fluid in meat products which can be easily effected to eradicate pockets of fluid in a meat product as an adjunct structure or step to the normal injection process.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.